Room 20: EFL Thoughts

Two days ago I wrote about my doubts about many teachers’ true interest in technology. I said I’d do some informal investigation during the event I just attended at the Instituto Cultural Dominico-Americano in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

I gave my three technology talks and attended one given by Susan Gaer. I observed the teachers and asked some direct questions…and these are the results:

Unsurprisingly, all but two teachers had cellphones….and almost all had digital cameras or had access to them. Out of a group of 30, about 10 had i-pods. I didn’t find this unusual…some of the teachers were relatively young and a few around my age…(those of us who remembered teaching with cassette taperecorders).

In my plenary, I had around 200 attendees. I asked how many used google and most said they did. Around 60% used Wikipedia, but from their reactions I could tell many didn’t trust it. Around 50% had read a blog and, interestingly enough, 10 had their own blogs.

Now, from my research for the talk, I know the Dominican Republic is not really typical. According to Internet World Stats (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm), 23% of the world’s population uses the Internet, but 31.6% of the population of the Dominican Republic uses it. This was as surprising to the attendees as it was to me. Many had said (as some teachers always do in my tech talks) that no one could get online, that it was just too difficult..although they admitted there were cybercafes all over and they charged less than a dollar an hour (just like I’ve found in Mexico).

So…what’s my conclusion…I really can’t say. I’ll be giving “tech” talks in Colombia and Chile this summer and in Mexico in the fall, so I guess I just continue my informal investigation….

Any comments?

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 7:04 pm and is filed under technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.